Bullying and Students with Disabilities: Predictive and Protective Factors, Current Intervention Efforts, and Future Directions Chad A. Rose, Ph.D. Assistant Professor – Department of Special Education University of Missouri

Quick Quotes “I couldn‘t stand going back to school because of what the other kids put me thorough. I was bullied, bruised, called names, kicked under the table, you name it someone had done it to me. I couldn’t help being epileptic.” (Whitney, Smith, & Thompson, 1994, p. 214) “Often just being different in a noticeable way can be a risk factor for being a victim.” (Whitney et al., 1994, p.213) That is the way of it. Someone always gets picked on. That is life. That happens in the hierarchy” (p.73). Therapist Remark About the Bullying of Students with Fragile X Syndrome in Baker & Donlley’s (2001) study (p. 73)

Understanding Bullying “Victimization may be the result of our educational system being regarded as a social hierarchy, where bullying is generally considered a social ritual, a typical part of adolescent experience, or a student’s rite of passage.” (Rose, Monda-Amaya, & Espelage, 2011, p. 114)

Understanding the Bullying Dynamic

What is Bullying? Adapted from Olweus (2005)

Topographies of Bullying Physical Verbal Relational Cyber Aggression Instrumental Retaliatory Jostling

Who is Involved? Adapted from Olweus (2001)

Understanding the Bullying Dynamic (Rose, Simpson, & Moss, 2015)

Understanding the Nature of Bullying

Traditional Thinking (Rose, Simpson, & Moss, 2015)

Contemporary Thinking (Rose, Simpson, & Moss, 2015)

Social-Ecological Perspective of Bully/Victimization Disability may, at least, partially result from “ineffective interactions between a person’s capabilities and the demands of his or her environments” (Lukasson & Schalock, 2012, p. 3) (Rose, Allison, & Simpson, 2012)

Stages of Bullying Reinforcement: Stimulus change immediately following a response and increases the future frequency of that type of behavior in similar conditions (Cooper, Heron, & Heward, 2007) Adapted From Doll & Swearer (2006)

Power and Influence Body Capital - certain kind of body Social Capital - peer relationships Cultural Capital - participate in valued activities or belong to valued cultural group Informational Capital - up on latest gossip Economic Capital - money Symbolic Capital - material possessions (Klein, 2012)

Homophily Hypothesis

Development of Bullying Behavior Behavior tends to follow a distinct developmental pattern Younger students without well-developed verbal or social skills resort to physical aggression As verbal skills develop, these students transition to less physical forms of aggression…verbal aggression As social skills develop, students learn to analyze and manipulate situation in their favor, so they use more indirect means of aggression (Björkqvist, 2001; Björkqvist et al., 1992)

Behavioral Understanding Behavior is both functional and communicative Bullying is a Social Construct Maintained by Social Reinforcers Hidden Curriculum Bystanders At-Risk Characteristics Include Anything that could be deviant from perceived “norm” behaviors of the group. Bullying is not exclusive to one population or school environment

Critical Issues Related to the Disproportionate Representation of Youth with Disabilities

Disproportionate Representation of Youth with Disabilities

History of Prevalence Safe School Initiative (Vossekuil et al., 2002) 37 Shooting; 41 Perpetrators (1974-2000) 71% Victimized Nansel et al. (2001) 30% (Perpetrator, Victim, Provocative Victim) Espelage et al. (2000) Only 19.5% of Middle School Students Had NOT Observed, Been a Victim, or Participated in Bullying within the Last Month of Being Surveyed

Prevalence of Victimization (US Dept. of Justice, 2014)

Prevalence of Victimization Total Victimization Victimization by Category (Rose, Simpson, Moss, 2015)

Prevalence of Bully Perpetration Total Perpetration Perpetration by Category (Rose, Simpson, Moss, 2015)

Victimization of Youth with Disabilities Over Time (Rose & Gage, In Press)

Perpetration by Youth with Disabilities Over Time (Rose & Gage, In Press)

Other Prevalence Studies: Disability Status Early Childhood Victimization – Disability Victimization Over Time - Disability (Son et al., 2012) (Blake et al.,, 2012)

Predictive and Protective Factors

Class Placement: Bullying (Rose, Espelage, & Monda-Amaya, 2009)

Class Placement: Fighting (Rose, Espelage, & Monda-Amaya, 2009)

Class Placement: Victimization (Rose, Espelage, & Monda-Amaya, 2009)

Victimization and Perpetration by Disability Type and Class Placement (Rose et al., 2015)

Bullying and Social Supports (Rose, Espelage et al., 2015)

Bullying and Social Supports (Rose, Espelage et al., 2015)

Bullying and Social Supports (Rose, Espelage et al., 2015)

Bullying and Social Supports (Rose, Espelage et al., 2015)

Bully-Victim vs. Reactive-Victim (Rose & Espelage, 2012)

Bully-Victim and Psychosocial Outcomes (Rose, Simpson, & Preast, 2016)

Intervention Efforts

Our Approach

SW-PBIS & Bully Prevention (Rose & Monda-Amaya, 2012)

SW-PBIS & SEL Overlap (Preast, Bowman, & Rose, Under Review)

Second Step: Student Success Through Prevention (SS-STP) (Espelage, Rose, & Polanin, 2015)

Increasing Social Skill Acquisition (Preast, Bowman, & Rose, Under Review)

Targeted Social Skill Groups (K-8) (Preast, Bowman, & Rose, Under Review)

Future Directions

Future Directions for Bully Prevention Address the 3 critical questions related to the disproportionate representation of youth with disabilities Does the traditional definition of bullying, specifically bully perpetration, apply to youth with disabilities? Is the disproportionality associated with disability identification or characteristics associated with specific disabilities? What role does educational placement play in the disproportionate representation of youth with disabilities? Evaluate intervention efforts at the systems, universal, class/group, and individual levels Develop a bullying involvement screener to proactively support skill development Increase access and opportunities related to bully prevention interventions and programming

Chad A. Rose, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Department of Special Education University of Missouri Email: rosech@missouri.edu Website: bullypreventionlab.com (Active 10/1) Phone: 573-882-3269